Institute of Texan Cultures staying put

A portion of the original Convention Center would remain for a cultural tenant like a museum, after the rest is demolished. POPULOUS

At one point, the city of San Antonio and the Institute of Texan Cultures had informal talks about moving the ITC’s exhibits to a smaller museum space within HemisFair Park close to Alamo and Market streets. It would clear up roughly 14 acres of land on the southeast corner of the park, giving HemisFair planners even more space to work with.

But that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

“Why relocate?,” said Joe Izbrand, spokesman for UTSA, which owns the property. “We have been a cornerstone of HemisFair Park since it opened in 1968. We are a destination. People know where we are. We’re accessible from all areas of San Antonio.

“We believe that a great park deserves great museums, and (that) it’s a natural fit.”

The plan remains to level most of the original Convention Center structure at Alamo and Market streets, but to leave 100,000 square feet of a building, across three levels, for a cultural tenant like a museum. HemisFair planners would take the cleared land and create a kind of entrance to the park from the corner. All of this while the Convention Center is expanded east in the coming years.

“There were some informal and initial discussion about the feasibility of ITC relocating perhaps within the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center,” Izbrand said. “Our plans are to remain where we are.”

Andres Andujar, CEO of the HemisFair Area Redevelopment Corp., said his group is lining up one or more tenants which would fit in the cultural mold.

“We have a series of options for the use of the structure that remains when the Convention Center is demolished,” Andujar said. “It could be one, but I think it’s going to be more.”

The structure will remain attached to the Convention Center, just west of the San Antonio River and across from the Lila Cockrell Theatre, with a river level, park level and mezzanine above.

Andujar said ITC still will reap the benefits of redevelopment around it. This includes activating dormant streets and adding a streetcar, which will improve accessibility to the ITC.

“We are going to put a street that is public that will possibly have the streetcar on it,” Andujar said. “They are going to have a frontage which they have never had. And so its future is very different, it’s very connected.”

UTSA’s goal for the ITC is for it to become more self-sustaining financially. Currently, 52 percent of its operations are funded by state appropriations, 41 percent by ticket sales and events, and 7 percent by corporate and private gifts.

“That’s not a sustainable model for us,” Izbrand said. “We have to identify a consistent and reliable funding source. That’s why we are open to exploring ideas, but based on ITC remaining at its current location.”